About three months into taking Zepbound, comedian Todd Masterson got a whiff of a certain Le Labo fragrance and thought about it for days.
“I had to go back and buy it. I was obsessed,” said Masterson, who goes by @GayFatFriend on Instagram and TikTok.
“It was like that trope in movies where someone takes a hit of a drug and then they flash cut to their pupil dilating and then flash cut to them flying through an electric tunnel,” he told HuffPost. “Like, it literally hit a nerve in my sinuses and it tattooed itself on my brain.”
That was just the start of it. Fourteen months after starting Zepbound ― an injectable GLP-1 medication for weight loss ― Masterson has lost almost 80 pounds and gained a full-on fragrance obsession. His collection ― heavy on intense florals and vanilla scents ― is nearing 100 bottles.
“It’s not a hunger craving, but I reapply several different scents throughout the day,” he said. “I love to layer. My tastes change daily. I like bright stuff in the morning and gourmand stuff before bed.”
Samantha King, a former fashion model from Northern Tasmania, noticed a different kind of sensory shift after starting Mounjaro nine months ago: Fragrances that once turned her stomach suddenly felt wearable, even irresistible in some cases.
“So rather than feeling ‘hungry’ for scents, it’s more that my tolerance and perception have shifted,” said King, who shares her GLP-1 experiences on YouTube. “GLP-1s didn’t make me fall in love with perfume, they changed how my body listens to it.”
Like Masterson, she gravitates toward foodie-forward, vanilla-based scents. That’s not uncommon. As The Guardian reported, perfume companies are in the midst of a gourmand boom, fueled by consumer appetite for sweet, dessert-like notes such as vanilla, pistachio and caramel — a trend one global beauty analyst linked directly to the rise of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs.
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Doctors who prescribe GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro to quiet “food noise” say they’re hearing more patients describe unexpected changes in the way they experience scents, too.
“Anecdotally, I have had patients report that their sense of smell feels ‘stronger’ or that certain scents are more noticeable after starting GLP-1 medications,” said Fatima Cody Stanford, an obesity medicine physician and associate professor of medicine and pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.
“Most commonly, they describe heightened sensitivity to food smell ― sometimes finding fried or heavy foods less appealing,” Stanford said. A smaller number have mentioned becoming more aware of non-food scents as well, such as perfumes and household fragrances.
“It’s not universal, but the theme is increased sensory awareness rather than a complete change in smell,” she said.
On Reddit, there’s no shortage of people on GLP-1s talking about their growing perfume collections and how they’re firmly leaning into their scent obsession.
“Wearing these scents is about taking back a beautiful sensory experience without the guilt that always followed before,” one woman wrote. “The smell of dessert, which used to signify psychological defeat, now feels like a huge symbol of freedom.”
Others report being repulsed by smells they once loved. Candles, certain perfumes are an “immediate ick,” in the same way pregnancy hormones flip the script on certain tastes and smells.
What exactly is going on? Stanford suspects it may be tied to a shift in sensory focus as GLP-1 users experience reduced food reward. Reduced food reward refers to a diminished sense of pleasure, satisfaction, or dopamine-driven “liking” and “wanting” associated with eating, often resulting in a lower motivation to consume food.
“If food becomes less stimulating, other sensory experiences, like fragrance, may feel more salient or rewarding,” Stanford said.
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As Valentina Parma, a psychologist who studies human olfaction at the Monell Chemical Senses Center, put it: “When food loses its pleasurable pull, other sensory sources ― for instance, music, texture, scent ― may fill that hedonic gap.”
To get a bit more scientific, Parma explained that GLP-1 receptors are found in the mitral cells of the olfactory bulb — the brain region involved in processing smell — as well as in the hippocampus. Research suggests the local GLP-1 system within the olfactory bulb plays a role in odor-triggered insulin secretion and foraging behavior, hinting at a deeper connection between smell, metabolism and appetite.
“Changes in GLP-1 signaling could modulate how odors are processed centrally, in ways that are subtle but evident for some,” she told HuffPost.
The fascination with fragrance could also be related to the way GLP-1s can improve a person’s overall metabolic and inflammatory state, Stanford said.
“Some patients report clearer thinking or heightened awareness after metabolic improvement, which could translate into noticing scents more,” the doctor said.
That said, large controlled studies on the phenomenon still haven’t been conducted and more research is needed before scientists can draw firm conclusions, Parma said.
But when her team analyzed the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) — a post-marketing surveillance database where patients, caregivers and clinicians voluntarily report potential side effects — they found that some people taking GLP-1 receptor agonists reported parosmia, a smell distortion disorder in which familiar scents suddenly smell “wrong,” and often unpleasant.
“Parosmia can render food smells unpleasant while leaving non-food fragrances relatively intact, but in rarer cases, it can render smells more positive,” Parm said. “This could create a relative preference shift away from the kitchen and toward the perfume counter.”
Le Labo and Wegovy collabo coming soon? We’ll see.
The original version of this story was published on HuffPost at an earlier date.